4 Tips for Picking a Surfboard for Beginners

Learn tips for picking a surfboard if you are a beginner boarder from Quiksilver's Michael Baron in this Howcast video about how to pick a surfboard.

Transcript

Basically, when you're choosing a board for a beginner, you definitely don't want to get a short board. Basically a beginner needs to have enough paddle and enough flotation and the board being stable enough so that they can get up on it on a slow, mushy wave and get up on it so it's not real tippy and it's real easy to stand up. Now, you may want to get a short board because you look really cool on the beach, but listen, your learning curve is going to be really long. If you get a long board, a wide long board, thick, it's going to be stable, you're going to be able to paddle it very easily and get up on it very, very easy. You're gonna want to get at least an 8 foot, 22 inches, 3 inches thick long board. That's gonna really float you and give you enough paddle and having the board being stable enough so that you're not fighting the tippingness of the board. When I talk about tippingness, if you were to get on a too thin of a board or a short board, it's just going to feel like it's going to come out from underneath you. You're going to have a really hard time trying to paddle that board and get paddling it into the wave and getting that board going the speed you need to get into the wave. And then once you're in the wave, that long board, that wider, thicker, long board is going to make it so much easier for you to get up and start planning on the wave right away. If you were on a short board it's going to feel real tippy, it's going to be hard to get into the waves so do yourself a favor, go and get a long board with a lot of volume, and have it be real sturdy for yourself, and have fun.